Trivia / Shawn Michaels

• Breakup Breakout:
  • The Rockers are the most infamous example of this in professional wrestling, so much so that they were the former Trope Namer (it used to be called "The Jannetty"). Shawn Michaels is one of the biggest stars of all time. Marty Jannetty hasn't been relevant in years, and what he's most famous for is being the man that the left behind half of any broken up tag team is compared to. The impact of this breakup is so prevalent that to this day, the rise of any hot new WWF/E tag team will inevitably result in speculation about which member will end up as "The Jannetty" when they inevitably breakup. There are some wrestling fans who attribute the floundering of modern tag team wrestling (both within and without the WWE) to this speculation of betrayal the moment two wrestlers form a pair and, by extension, the Rockers. In some circles, the phrase "Shawn Michaels killed tag teams" is uttered without irony.
    
    In Jannetty's defense, relegating him to irrelevancy while pushing Michaels wasn't the original plan. At the time The Rockers broke up, Michaels and Jannetty were considered equals in ability and charisma, and the WWF expected to get two singles stars out of the breakup. However, a couple of badly timed injuries hamstrung Jannetty's biggest pushes and his partying lifestyle ended up getting the better of him. And considering Michaels' antics at times in his career, that's saying something.
    
    Ironically, the only other tag team that can really compare to such a discrepancy in success is Hulk Hogan and the man whose Talk Show with Fists was the place where the Rockers broke up, Brutus "The Barber" Beefcake (he even began his career as Hogan's unrelated brother, Dizzy Hogan), and even then, Beefcake had more relevancy than Jannetty, mainly by doing what was widely seen as riding Hogan's coattails by following Hogan to almost every promotion Hogan has been in, and almost always portraying a character that is associated with Hogan in-storyline.
  • Shawn was on the receiving end of this when his team with Kevin Nash (in his "Diesel" persona) broke up in 1995 due to Shawn being jealous that his former bodyguard won the WWF title before he did.
  • Subverted in D-Generation X, where both him and Triple H are well-regarded superstars with plenty of accoladoes in their backs. However, a case could be made regarding them and the rest of DX: Road Dogg and Billy Gunn both got stale and couldn't get over either as singles wrestlers or with other tag team partners,^note It could be aruged that Billy fared better by default, due to Road Dogg being released in 2001, while Billy did alright with Chuck Palumbo as Billy & Chuck (winning two more tag team title reigns) and lasted three more years before being released in 2004, but Billy & Chuck relied on their pseudo-homosexual partnership gimmick, which after it ended didn't take them very far. Chyna had one of the most notorious falls from grace in wrestling history, X-Pac became the trope namer for X-Pac Heat, in Rick Rude's case he both A) Had already a very storied career before joining the group, and B) His stint during the early days of the group was so brief that it could count as an example of Early-Installment Weirdness for the group, and Tori has pretty much been all but forgotten.
• Career Resurrection: One of the biggest in all of wrestling history. After a back injury in 1998 seemed to end his career, Michaels returned in 2002 and stunned everyone by being better than he'd ever been before. With an attitude change to give other guys the rub, he spent the next eight years putting on sensational battles to solidify his legacy as a great.
• Creator Backlash: He's reserved many a self-deprecating comment for what a Jerkass he was in the '90s.
• Early-Installment Weirdness: Michaels' first high-profile match against Ric Flair was taped (for national broadcast on WWF Prime Time Wrestling) on December 2, 1991 – the day before the famous talk-show segment featuring Michaels' heel turn against Rockers tag-team partner Marty Jannetty. While the match itself was fairly well done and showed signs of Micahels' eventual greatness, there would be far more memorable matches to come between the two; the match itself was more memorable for setting the final pieces in place for Michaels' turn, as a well-meaning Jannetty's attempt to assist Michaels led to a pinfall loss.
• Real Life Writes the Hairstyle: The reason why Shawn sported a shaved head during his 2018 appearances is because he shaved it for the film 90 Feet From Home - where he plays a cancer patient.
• Real Life Writes the Plot:
  • The Montreal Screwjob.
  • Shawn's status as a born-again Christian (he found religion during his time away from the ring between 1998 and 2002), which has played into promos and angles since his return, most notably in his controversial feud with Vince McMahon leading into Backlash '06, and his feud with The Undertaker leading into WrestleMania 25.
  • As well as his oft-referenced friendship with Triple H.
• Real Song Theme Tune
  • The Midnight Rockers used Judas Priest's "Living After Midnight" in the AWA and in Continental Championship Wrestling, where they also used Mötley Crüe's "Girls Girls Girls."
  • When WWE did crossover shows in Japan with SWS (Super World Sports), the Rockers got Ozzy Osbourne's "Crazy Train."
• Romance on the Set: Had a behind-the-scenes relationship with Sunny for nearly a year shortly before he met his wife Rebecca.
• Wag the Director: The Kliq had a lot of booking power during their reign of terror in 1995-1997.
• What Could Have Been:
  • Perhaps one of the most shocking ones: Back when Michaels and Bret Hart were friends, Bret was offered by Shawn Michaels, Scott Hall and Kevin Nash to join the Kliq. What would have happened if he accepted is anyone's guess.
  • HBK never went toe-to-toe with The Rock, primarily because their primes largely occurred JUST a year apart. Rumor also has it that The Rock hated Michaels for trying to bury him through The Rock's feud with Triple H in the 90s. There's also a popular story that Michaels disrespected The Rock's grandmother Lia Maivia when working for her Hawaii-based Polynesian Pro Wrestling for a series of matches in 1987. Allegedly a then-fifteen-year-old Rock had to be talked out of confronting Michaels physically. Like most wrestling urban legends, these rumors are unsubstantiated. For whatever it's worth, Rock did mention Michaels as one of the only three wrestlers he never wrestled that he wished he could have (the others being Rey Mysterio Jr. and John Cena, the latter of which Rocky eventually did face off at WrestleMania 28 and 29).
  • Similarly, Michaels superkicked Brock Lesnar at least once, but nothing ever came of it.
  • Michaels himself has mentioned regretting never getting a chance to go with Eddie Guerrero, especially due to their similar life stories of being born-again Christians after tumultuous personal lives.
  • We also never got to see Michaels vs. CM Punk, the closest we got was the feud being teased during Michaels' appearence on the 12/9/13 episode of Raw.
  • There were, allegedly, plans for him to team up with Bret Hart at two different points. Once was before the Montreal Screwjob as kind of a new Mega Powers, and the second was during a 2006 feud with Vince McMahon.
  • Similar to the above, there was a planned Rockers reunion angle during his feud with McMahon (they did actually do a one-night reunion against La Résistance (Tag Team) in the lead-up to WrestleMania 22, where Michaels and McMahon faced off), but Janetty missed a show and was released.
  • On the flip side, Shawn was allegedly responsible for aborting the pushes of Tatanka, Chris Candido, Bam Bam Bigelow, Shane Douglas, and others, as well as (as mentioned above) attempting to bury The Rock.
  • He was pegged for a one-time match against AJ Styles at either the 2017 Royal Rumble (which took place at HBK's home city of San Antonio) or WrestleMania 33, but set his foot down and declined, opting to have his retirement stick.

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